Ode to Mom - Better Late Than Never

Meant to post this on Mother's day, but things sort of got away from me.

Ways my mother tortured me as a kid, and the reasons I'm so thankful:

1. She insisted on correcting my grammar.

Me: Mom, can I have some ice cream?

Mom: I don't know, can you?

Me: Where's the ice cream at?

Mom: Rebekah, don't end your sentence with a preposition. It's unbecoming. Now, what did you need?

Me: I've forgot.

She also insisted on using vocabulary generally reserved for for SAT testing in everyday life. My sister and I were never "grounded", we were put on "restriction" or"temporary privilege suspension". Nothing was ever "pretty" or "good". Things were always "resplendent", "exceptional", or "prepossessing".

In my cretinous state of adolescence, I tended to take umbrage at my mother's attempts to instill in me a firm grasp of the English language. I found her magniloquence pretentious.(Thank you Thesaurus.com) I did not understand at that time that she was doing in my daily home life what most schools in this state fail to do in 12 years: instilling in me the ability to communicate with anyone on any level.

As the great Ludwig Wittgenstien said (according to Google), "The limits of my language are the limits of my mind. All I know is what I can communicate and comprehend."

2. My mother made me clean, cook, sew, and garden.

I resented and resisted it for the most part. The cooking and gardening I didn't mind so much, but I couldn't help feeling that I was being groomed to become the perfect 1950s housewife.

At age 17, the day of reckoning came. I moved out of the house and into my first college dorm. My freshman year at college I was surrounded by girls who had never lifted a finger in their lives, so I took advantage of them. I cleaned their rooms, and did their laundry for cash. Thanks, Mom!

3. She didn't let me have a boyfriend until I was 16.

She should have made me wait til I was 20.

4. She never spoiled me with the latest trends.

I can remember wanting the name brand clothes as a kid (BUM Equipment, Stussy, L.E.I.). That stuff was pretty expensive and my mom didn't believe in wasting money for the sake of my vanity. I also really wanted Nintendo and cable TV. Everyone else had that stuff! I felt so deprived. Mom always encouraged me to look inward to find my self-worth.

"Why would you want to waste your mind on video games or television?, she would ask. "Do you want to go to the library?"

I learned pretty quickly that if I wasn't ever going to have the things I needed to be truly "Cool", I would have to establish myself in other ways.

Please note the extremely uncool flowered turtleneck.

In 5th grade I decided to learn to play the tuba. I wrote poetry. I painted. I read. I embraced my general lack of coolness. Jeff is the same way, and I think that's one of the things I love most about him. He has never been concerned about having the latest and the greatest things. He needs very little to be happy. Even as adults, we take pride in our ability to revel in lameness. We don't have IPods, Wiis, new furniture, or cool cars, but we have a ton of fun together. I wouldn't have it any other way.

I can honestly say that in retrospect, I consider it a blessing to have been raised counterculturally, and I certainly feel better off for it. Mom, you did a great job! I hope that one day I can be half the mother you have been. Happy Mother's Day!

Bow Chicka Bow Wow

Jeff and I spent the better part of today helping our friends move into their awesome new house. This made me realize how much I hate renting. I can paint, replace fixtures, and garden, but at the end if of the day, this well-decorated craphole still isn't mine. (Not that this would be my craphole of choice if I were, in fact, in the market for a home) This year, I'm asking Santa for real estate.

Now I just have to work on making the nice list.

Speaking of the nice list, my sister took me to see a comedian tonight who is most definitely NOT on it. Daniel Tosh. This guy is messed up in the head. My favorite statement of the whole night:

"Ladies, if you're not beautiful, it's okay. Don't spend your life denying it. Just face the fact that you're going to have to get through life the same way a man does: with hard work."

Fortunately I don't have to worry about that. Jeff thinks I'm pretty and doesn't want me to lift a finger. Seriously. When I got home from my night on the town, he'd cleaned the house from top to bottom. Most guys would be like, "Hey my wife's out for the night! I'm gonna have the guys over, drink beer, and watch sports!", but not my man. He decided to use his time wisely to score some major points which (judging from the fact that its almost midnight and the shower is running), he is about to cash in. Night, y'all! ;-)

Pimpin Myself Out for Readership

I was reading online today about how to get more people to read your blog and comment on it. As of today, I only have 7 followers (And I love you, Mom, Laurel, Robin, Meghan, Jaress, Aunt Nora, and Burt).

One of the suggestions was to post nude or nearly nude pictures of yourself on your blog. In all my pale chubbiness, I can't imagine that this would work, but I figure its worth a shot, so here goes nothing!

Quick! Now leave me a comment, and go tell your friends!

Ratio Intolerance

It's a problem I've had since I was a child. Whenever I got a bag of M&Ms or Skittles, I immediately dumped them all out and separated them into piles by color. Then I would even out the piles by eating the extras. After I had perfectly even piles, I would eat one from each pile (in rainbow order), always careful to maintain an even ratio, until all the candy was gone. I've done this for as long as I can remember, and it never seemed strange to me until I met Rick.

Rick requested that I bring a meat, cheese, and cracker tray to our small group one week. I did, and in true Becky form, there was a perfect ratio of 1 meat:1 cheese: 1 cracker. That's just good sense, right? But then Rick did the unthinkable. He made a sandwich! (cracker/meat/cheese/cracker) I didn't want to make a big deal about it, so I quickly scarfed down a piece of meat and a piece of cheese. "There", I thought, "All fixed". Then he did it again, and he wasn't the only one! I sat there all evening keeping a mental tally and trying to eat up the difference. Needless to say, by the end of the night, I was sick, and my small group was more than a little concerned.
What is wrong with me?

Would You Rather...

Have a see-through nose or completely white eyeballs? Risk you life in a 100 yard race against a sixth grader or an eleven-year-old dog? Be on top of a Ferris wheel in a lightning storm or an earthquake?

These were some of the pivotal questions we were forced in answer in our small group tonight. In lieu of an actual Bible study, we decided to have a game night. I learned that my sister cannot rap, I can't explain how electricity works, Paul will not let his chihuahua lick peanut butter off his nose for anything, and Rick does an incredible cat impression. Seriously...for a minute there I was like "Hey, where did Rick go, and what is this thing pouncing on my head?"

All in all, Jeff and I belong to a very wonderful, very A.D.D. small group. There's nothing quite as good as knowing that at the end of a crappy Monday, I get to go laugh my butt of for a couple hours and, on occasion, learn something. Now I just need a good reason to get through Tuesday-Friday. ;-)

How Jeff Won

So I'm pretty sure that my only readers so far are my mother and my sister. In light of this sad truth (sorry Mom and Laurel), I'll keep this story delightfully PG.

I should preface this with the fact that Jeff rarely wins. When he does, I tend to pay heavily. I think its happened twice since we've been married.

This afternoon I asked Jeff what he wanted for dinner, and he suggested that we barbecue. It was a great idea, but I pointed out to him that we were out of charcoal. I knew this because I used the last of it last week. In a rather bold and uncharacteristic manner, Jeff protested.

"No, we have charcoal under the BBQ"

I knew that the empty bag was sitting there, so I told him to go out and look. If he found charcoal, I would um...do something that he really likes. ;-)

However, if the charcoal was gone, he would give me a 30 minute foot rub. (It's been a while since my last pedicure, so Jeff was taking quite a risk, or so I thought.)

Jeff readily agreed to the wager, and headed out the back door to prove me wrong. I sat in the living room waiting to hear the token expletive that would mark the moment of my victory. It never came. Instead, in marched my husband triumphantly holding our little grey cat ,"Charcoal", who often sleeps under the BBQ. Damn!